>(The split is 1,100 native apps, 4,300 watch faces, and 100 apps that rely on a companion iOS or Android app, CEO Eric Migicovsky tells Fast Company.)<p>Read: about 100 apps that actually do anything useful.<p>I say that as someone that owns and rather likes their Pebble.
Number of apps is not a measure of usefulness or enough for a buy decision. I have with my Moto 360 a, let say, small number of apps, but quite useful ( Google Now extension, navigation, remote photo trigger, fitness tools, to name a few). I know that more and more developers will add their wear-enabled apps and this will increase the functionality. The battery point is a good one, but while I sleep I have to take any watch off my hand so the point in my case is kind of moot.<p>Besides that, who would wear a kids like looking watch? Ok maybe some of us, but with some good leather straps, the Moto 360 looks really good and somehow unnoticed, like a normal watch. This gives me some real value, but also I am not a very young person too ;).
Interesting thing to note about Pebble apps is they made JavaScript framework. So if you are good with JS, you can get used to PebbleJS quite fast and make yourself a basic app in few hours! Quite useful if you need something specific which doesn't exist yet.<p><a href="http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/" rel="nofollow">http://developer.getpebble.com/guides/js-apps/pebblekit-js/</a>
I don't care how many apps it has. I can ask my android wear device what my calendar is like, or send a text, or ask to see the weather. I think a lot of people see more functionality out of android wear.
So far the Moto 360 is the only smart watch for sale that I think I'd want on my wrist. It looks like a cool watch. I don't think I'd use the apps or anything a whole lot, but I think that it'd be a nice enough looking watch to wear around.<p>I think that tech people are overestimating the potential of wearables as useful tech. There isn't much a smart watch does for you that you couldn't pull out your phone and do.<p>However, the whole reason smart watches exist is to increase the LTV of a customer. When you are selling a $200-600 phone, selling a $200+ watch is a nice bump in LTV.<p>Apple's interchangeable bands is not just to make the manufacturing process cheaper and more efficient, it's also to make it so you can buy multiple bands to match different outfits. I know some people who own tons of Chuck Taylor shoes of different colors to match every outfit they own. Same kind of deal.<p>In many ways, wearable tech is less about tech and more about fashion businesses. Fashion is a great business because it's disposable. Disposable things get repurchased.<p>Phones are disposable, laptops are disposable, all of it is disposable and that is almost like a form of recurring revenue. Devices as a service in a way. The push for all of this is driven by profit, not by much else.
The pebble team have done a great job, but I think increasing the 8 apps limit would really help.<p>It would also make things very interesting if they could release a color version that achieved similar battery life.
Yeah. I really like Pebble. YMMV but for my needs its perfect. I want important notifications 'on my wrist'; so I can put the phone away during family time (when daughter is around). And the basic screen (no bright colors or touch sensitive) works great as daughter lost interest in it after 2 mins!<p>I just wish they develop true wireless/cordless charging using something like ambient light, hand motion or whatever so I don't have to charge it every few days!
Eric showed off their mobile-based "app store" before it was released. The cool part is it could download a new watch personality over BT <i>without internet access</i>. So it could operate with cached watch apps if you're out of cell reception.<p>(I still have my Alerta that was hand-delivered.)